"Our ties and our relationship with India are very strong and we look to make them stronger," State Department Spokesman John Kirby said.

This is the reason why US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visited India recently and issued a joint statement with his Indian counterpart to improve the defence cooperation across a wide range of military activities, he told reporters at his daily news conference yesterday.

"India's participation in the Nuclear Security Summit, yet another area of cooperation between the United States and India. So broadly speaking, this is an important relationship that we very much value and look forward to trying to improve going forward across all the sectors," Kirby said in response to a question.